Sophie Calle: Talking to Strangers - Whitechapel Gallery

Sophie Calle: Talking to Strangers
16 October 2009 – 03 January 2010
Galleries 1, 8, 9
The Whitechapel Gallery presents the first UK retrospective of leading French
contemporary artist Sophie Calle.
Sophie Calle’s works are most frequently described in terms of shadowing
and voyeurism, involving constructing identities and creating complex
scenarios that are then documented through photographs and texts. They
explore the field of social relations, each proposing an exchange, transaction
or social contract with those whose lives she momentarily crosses. This
exhibition brings together 12 key works from the late 1970s to the present,
including the acclaimed installation Prenez Soin De Vous (Take Care of
Yourself), 2007.
Calle began taking photographs of strangers on the streets of Paris in 1979.
Her works arise from a series of actions or encounters; their parameters are
dictated by the use of rules and instructions that echoes conceptual practices
of the 1960s and 70s. Her position as subject within her work to explore social
constructs has also drawn parallels with performance art of the same period.
Calle’s works are presented in a pared down, objectivist manner that alludes
to the disciplines of journalism, anthropology or psychoanalysis. Her works
also make use of literary devices, as well as everyday forms such as the diary
and the photo novel. The boundaries between fact and fiction are often
ambiguous.
The exhibition will premiere the English language version of Prenez Soin De
Vous (Take Care of Yourself), which the artist first exhibited at the French
Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. This large-scale, multi-media
installation, which will occupy the entire ground floor Gallery 1, takes as it’s
starting point an email in which her partner informs the artist that he is
leaving her. Calle invited over 100 women from different professional
backgrounds – lawyers, actors, accountants, singers – to comment through
the lens of their professional vocabulary. The poignant, amusing and often
poetic result transcends the personal to provide a polyphonic portrait of, and
monument to, the women involved.
The exhibition continues in the upstairs galleries with an overview of earlier
work. It includes The Sleepers, 1979, in which the artist invited 29 strangers
to sleep in her bed. For The Bronx, 1980, Calle asked random inhabitants of
the south Bronx to show her a place of their choice in what was then one of
city’s most violent neighbourhoods, a place that they would always remember
should they one day leave. The collaborative nature of Calle’s work finds
different expression in works where her own actions and activities are
dictated by others. They include the American novelist Paul Auster in Gotham
Handbook, 1994 and Maud Kirsten, a medium and clairvoyant, in Berck, 2008.
Other works in the exhibition include: The Address Book, 1983; Anatoli, 1984;
Los Angeles, 1984; The Detachment, 1996; Journey to California, 2003;
Unfinished, 2003; Pas Pu Saisir La Mort (Couldn’t Capture Death), 2007.

Notes for Editors
• Sophie Calle was born in Paris in 1953 and has had solo shows at Palais
des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 2009; Bibliothèque Nationale Richelieu, Paris,
2008; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin 2004; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2003;
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Japan, 2003. Group shows include
Portraits-Souvenirs, Grand Palais, Paris, 2007; Passion Complex, 21 st
Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan, 2007;
Photographs, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001, Sydney
Biennial, 2000, Museum as Muse, MoMA, New York, 1999 and Carnegie
International 1991. In 2007 Calle represented France at the Venice
Biennale.
• The exhibition is curated by Andrea Tarsia, Head of Displays & Curatorial
Studies, Whitechapel Gallery, and organised in collaboration with the De
Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in Tilburg where it will be on show 16
January – 16 May 2010.
• The exhibition will be accompanied by The Sophie Calle Reader that brings
together key writings about her practice, co-published by Violette
Editions and the Whitechapel Gallery, £12.95
• A limited edition print, specially created by Sophie Calle, will be available
from the Gallery.
• Exhibition supported by CULTURESFRANCE - Ministère des Affaires
étrangères et eruopéennes
Visitor Information
Sophie Calle, 16 October 2009 – 03 January 2010, Whitechapel Gallery.
Admission free. Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm, Thursdays,
11am – 9pm. Whitechapel Gallery, 77 – 82 Whitechapel High Street, London
E1 7QX. Nearest London Underground Station: Aldgate East, Liverpool Street,
Tower Gateway DLR. T + 44 (0) 20 7522 7888 info@whitechapelgallery.org
whitechapelgallery.org
Press Information
The media view for Sophie Calle is Tuesday 13 October, 10am – 1pm.
For further press information please contact:
Rachel Mapplebeck on 020 7522 7880, 07811 456 806 or email
RachelMapplebeck@whitechapelgallery.org
Elizabeth Flanagan on 020 7522 7871 or email
ElizabethFlangan@whitechapelgallery.org

British Council Collection: My Yard
2 October–6 December 2009
Gallery 7
Artists Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane curate the third selection of works
from the British Council Collection. Their well-known preoccupation with
popular culture trickles through their choices, which focus largely on a
view of gritty urban Britain.
My Yard examines Britain’s industrial history and urban realities as seen
by artists throughout the 20th century. Works include Edward
Wadsworth’s dynamic landscapes which reflect the upheaval of industry
and World War I, and L.S. Lowry’s painting of his native Manchester,
Industrial City, 1948. The Boyle Family find unexpected beauty in the built
environment, while John Davies explores urban archaeologies in his
photographic studies of Sheffield and Stockport. The folly of utopian
town planning is parodied in Paul Noble’s fantastical city drawings.
Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane said, ‘This exhibition has ended up being
about home. The subject may not be immediately recognizable though,
(especially to anyone born after 1970) as in the 1980s the UK got a sort of
TV makeover – a lick of paint and some up-lighters etc. but the works we
are showing indicate a Britain just below the plasterboard of this ‘flip’
job, a draughty and slightly damp property with foundations that you feel
connect it, back through mud and bones, to all you think of when you talk
of British history.’
This display marks the British Council’s 75 th anniversary. It is the third in
a series of five displays presented over one year and selected by guest
curators, supported by specialist insurer Hiscox. The fourth exhibition
will be curated by artist Paula Rego. The final display in Spring 2010 will
result from an international competition open to curators worldwide.
Notes for Editors
• London based artists Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane have worked
together on a variety of projects over the last 15 years. Their
collaborative works, as with their distinguished individual
practices, often involve participatory processes and interrogate
notions of high and low culture.
• They are best known for the Folk Archive (1999-2005), a vast
compendium of contemporary artefacts and eclectic ephemera
collected from across Britain and Ireland. Previous projects
include working with amateur steam enthusiasts to create
motorised ‘internet machines’ (2003, 2006), and exhibiting the
Women’s Institute prize winning floral decorations in the entrance
hall of Tate Britain (2000),

• Deller (b. London, 1965) won the Turner Prize in 2004. He rose to prominence in 2001 for his
recreation of The Battle of Orgreave. He has exhibited widely both nationally and
internationally, most recently in solo presentations at Manchester’s Cornerhouse and the
New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (both 2009).
• Kane (b. Nottingham, 1961) has exhibited nationally and internationally and has recently
completed a series of high profile commissions. These include The Stratford Hoard (Art on
the Underground, 2008) and Life Class: Today’s Nude, an Artangel/Jerwood commission
which was televised nationally on Channel 4 in July 2009.
• The British Council was founded in 1934 to promote a wider knowledge of the UK abroad, to
promote the knowledge of the English language, and to develop closer cultural relations
between the United Kingdom and other countries. The arts play a major role in international
cultural relations, and for 75 years the Council has curated, organised and facilitated
pioneering exhibitions of British art throughout the world. The full British Council Collection is
now available to view online on our new collections website
www.britishcouncil.org/collection
• The British Council Collection displays at the Whitechapel Gallery are organised by Diana
Eccles, Head of Collection, The British Council Collection, and Andrea Tarsia, Head of
Displays, Whitechapel Gallery.
• The British Council Collection spans the 20th Century and includes works by early modern
masters such Stanley Spencer, Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash and Walter Sickert, Barbara
Hepworth, Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson. Post-war it includes, among
others, artists from the School of London; painters from St Ives and from the Kitchen Sink
group; exponents of the New Generation in the 1960s; conceptual and experimental artists
such as Gilbert & George and Richard Long; the New British Sculptors of the 1980s, including
Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor. Tracey Emin, Gary Hume,
Damien Hirst, Mark Wallinger and Sarah Lucas are among the YBA generation represented
and artists including Jeremy Deller, Douglas Gordon, Tomma Abts and Roger Hiorns bring the
Collection up to the present day.
• The presentation of the British Council Collection at the Whitechapel Gallery is supported by
specialist insurer Hiscox which has a long and established association with contemporary art
and was one of the first UK insurers to offer art insurance as a stand-alone policy for private
collectors, museums and galleries. Hiscox’s sponsorship of the Whitechapel Gallery’s
presentation of great collections underlines its commitment to promoting and protecting the
very best in modern and contemporary art.
Visitor Information
British Council Collection: My Yard, 2 October – 6 December 2009, Whitechapel Gallery.
Admission free. Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm, Thursdays, 11am – 9pm.
Whitechapel Gallery, 77 – 82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. Nearest London Underground
Station: Aldgate East, Liverpool Street, Tower Gateway DLR. T + 44 (0) 20 7522 7888
info@whitechapelgallery.org whitechapelgallery.org
Press Information
The media view for British Council Collection: My Yard is Tuesday 13 October, 10am – 12pm.
For further press information please contact:
Rachel Mapplebeck on 020 7522 7880, 07811 456 806 or email
RachelMapplebeck@whitechapelgallery.org
Elizabeth Flanagan on 020 7522 7871 or email ElizabethFlangan@whitechapelgallery.org

Whitechapel Gallery Exhibitions: Autumn 2009
The British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
26 September–13 December 2009
The Whitechapel Gallery’s exhibition space dedicated to archive displays
presents a selection of material from the British Council’s archives to bring
to life the history of the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale from 1938 to
today. The Venice Biennale provides a barometer for contemporary art
worldwide. Its history of nationalism, protest and war is closely intertwined
with the wider political and ideological struggles of twentieth century
Europe right back to the exhibition’s foundation in 1895 as the world’s first
regular international exhibition of contemporary art. Admission Free.
Inci Eviner
16 October 2009–3 January 2010
Inci Eviner’s film, Harem, 2009 is based on a series of early 19th century
engravings by German artist Antoine Ignace Melling, who was invited by
Sultan Selim the Third to chronicle the court and city of Constantinople.
Eviner replaces the original figures with animations of women performing
repetitive, mundane actions. Shown on a continuous loop the film challenges
the Western perception of the harem as a place of sexual intrigue and
subjugation with an alternative view of it as a place where women are the
active. Admission Free
Faisal Abdu’Allah: White (Why Have I Told Everything)
30 September–1 November 2009
Collaboration runs as a seam of critical enquiry through the work of Faisal
Abdu’Allah. For White (Why Have I Told Everything), Abdu’Allah reflects on
this project, and examines the hidden stories found in archival surveillance
films and reports. Using as his starting point, the Cable Street Riot of 1936,
which saw the metropolitan police facilitating a Fascist march through the
predominantly Jewish area of east London, the artist brings together an
installation including archive footage, documentation and photoetchings of
this important political event. Admission free. Supported by: Tower Hamlets, Find
Your Talent
Intoart: See the Revolutionary Art Exhibit
7 November–6 December 2009
South London art collective Intoart was founded in 2001 by Guy Allott, Sam
Jones and Ella Ritchie. Here the group present their distinctive approach to
studio practice, that includes people who have a learning disability. The
exhibition includes new work by Ntiense Eno Amooquaye, Selina Helene,
Mawuena Kattah, Doreen McPherson, Philomena Powell and Clifton Wright
alongside 4 short films which document the lives and working processes of
the artists by Lenka Clayton. Alongside the exhibition Malcolm Bull,
philosopher and art historian, The Courtauld Institute of Art and The Ruskin
School of Art, examines the way artists work together to form a creative
exchange in a new essay to accompany the show. Admission free
The Bloomberg Commission: Goshka Macuga
Until 18 April 2010
London-based Polish artist Goshka Macuga’s new site specific artwork

focuses on a key moment in the history of the Whitechapel Gallery: the
presentation of Picasso’s Guernica in 1939. Forming the centrepiece is a lifesize
tapestry of Guernica, commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller in 1955, and
created, in collaboration with Picasso. In 1985, the Rockefeller Estate lent
the tapestry to the United Nations Headquarters in New York, to offer a
deterrent to war. Supported by: Bloomberg
Visitor Information
Admission free. Opening times: Tues – Sun, 11am – 6pm; Thurs 11am – 9pm.
Whitechapel Gallery, 77 – 82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX.
Nearest London Underground Station: Aldgate East, Liverpool Street, Tower
Gateway DLR. T + 44 (0) 20 7522 7888 info@whitechapelgallery.org
whitechapelgallery.org
Press Information
For further press information please contact:
Rachel Mapplebeck on 020 7522 7880, 07811 456 806 or email
RachelMapplebeck@whitechapelgallery.org
Elizabeth Flanagan on 020 7522 7871 or email
ElizabethFlangan@whitechapelgallery.org

Whitechapel Gallery Forthcoming Exhibitions
September 2009 - June 2010
Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography
from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh
21 January – 11 April 2010
A landmark exhibition of photography from 1840 to the present day from
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is an unprecedented survey of South Asian
photographers and their presentation of culture and modernity. Historic early
photographs from the important Drik Collection in Bangladesh and the Alkazi
Collection in Delhi are given a rare platform on the world stage, while images
from private, familial records will be seen for the very first time.
The exhibition includes over 300 works by more than 50 artists, and begins
with images from the first photographic studios which fed the Victorians
appetite for images of India and captured its rich architectural heritage and
opulent nobility. It takes in social realism and reportage photography from
the 1940s. The 1960s saw the rise of amateur photography, and from the
1970s artists began capturing the dynamism of the street. More recently
documentary-style photographs present an economic and social critique
through social scenes, and the digitalisation of the process accelerated
cross-fertilisations with fashion, film, documentary and art.
Ticketed admission.
D.Daskalopoulos Collection
19 June 2010 – 5 June 2011
As part of its ongoing programme of opening up important art collections for
public view the Whitechapel Gallery announces its collaboration with the
D.Daskalopoulos Collection, Greece. Achim Borchardt-Hume, Chief Curator,
Whitechapel Gallery, selects key works from the collection, many of which
have not been seen in the UK before, for a series of four thematic exhibitions.
The D.Daskalopoulos Collection is one of the foremost European collections of
contemporary art composed of over 400 works by leading international artists
including Matthew Barney, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Gober, David Hammons,
Damien Hirst, Martin Kippenberger, Sherrie Levine, Paul McCarthy, Kiki Smith
and Rosemarie Trockel. The backbone of the Collection is formed by works
from the past two decades and reflects the ideas and aesthetic strategies of
this period giving particular prominence to large-scale installations and
sculpture, as well as drawing, collage and film and video. Carefully chosen
works from earlier parts of the 20 th Century – by artists such as Marcel
Duchamp, Robert Morris and Dieter Roth - root the collection historically and
add a further dimension to these displays. Admission free. Supported by Hiscox.
Press Information
For further press information please contact:
Rachel Mapplebeck on 020 7522 7880, 07811 456 806 or email
RachelMapplebeck@whitechapel.org
Elizabeth Flanagan on 020 7522 7871 or email
ElizabethFlanagan@whitechapel.org